Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a Housing Corporation, we’d like to see as many people in their own homes as possible. If you look at the houses that we’ve been providing over the years, we have 2,400 public housing units. I think through the years we’ve managed to get about 1,500 homeownership units starting from way back to the present. So we’ve put a lot of people into their own homes and we’re still trying to tailor some of our programs so we can get more people into their own homes.

We have to be careful. We’ve had a number of clients that have turned their units back over to the NWT Housing...

The $680,000 is not to actually build brand new units. We will take existing units in the community and we will retrofit them so they’re suitable for hard-to-house clients. Part of that money will be earmarked for working with a local organization who might want to run this particular program in the community for us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I stated before, I will follow up with the department and I will ask for an action plan and have to it to the Member by the end of March.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Our consumer affairs office is actually all of two people. As far as communicating to the public, if there’s a slippage there, that’s on my part. I’ll wear that. But I will see what kind of information we have out there and relay it on to the Member. Thank you.

I would be pleased to do that. We should have additional details after we meet in Fairbanks during the Arctic Winter Games that are taking place next month. There will be an opportunity there to meet with my colleagues from other jurisdictions. We should have the details ironed out a bit more and once we do have that, I do intend on informing the territorial sport organizations as well as Members of this House. I will be providing regular updates. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

We have heard from all sport organizations in the NWT that were excluded from 2016 and their preference was to have all the sports in one location to give them that opportunity to compete together. We had another location that was probably willing to step forward, but one of the excluded sports would not have been included in that particular venue. This location, we are anticipating that all six sports that were eliminated will be able to compete in one area. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I’m glad the Member took it for the way it was intended, and we were all laughing with him. I’ll have some information for the Member by the end of next week. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, our consumer affairs office is not nestled away. If there’s a slippage in promoting it – and I did make the commitment and I will follow up with the department as soon as we’re done here – but it’s not nestled away. We don’t receive many complaints at the moment, but again, that’s still no excuse for not communicating as well as we should that the office exists and what the numbers are. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I would like to use this opportunity to recognize my wife of almost 35 years. It will be 35 years in July. I would like to recognize my wife, Judy. Welcome to the gallery.

That is our intent, to try to cover off the cost of these games through our multi-sport line item budget if there is money left. We intend not to pass on the cost to the athletes. They would be paying their normal cost such as their registration. We are working hard with our other jurisdiction partners to see how we can work this out. We don’t know the exact details yet if there’s an opportunity for us to come back to this House to seek additional funding for that. That’s something we will work on and we will inform Members of that as we proceed. Thank you, Madam Speaker.